


Chapter Read, Lesson Learned

by J (j_writes)



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: 5 Things, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-15
Updated: 2012-03-15
Packaged: 2017-11-01 23:18:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/j_writes/pseuds/J
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>four times Clint Barton fell asleep in front of Phil Coulson, and one time he didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chapter Read, Lesson Learned

It took Clint seven and a half missions together before he let himself sleep while the suit was on watch.

He offered on the first mission, and the second, and Clint turned him down. On the third, he finally took him up on it, but he didn't sleep, curling into a corner instead and watching the abandoned and ransacked room around them change colors as the sun came up. The fourth, he wouldn't have seen his way out of alive if he'd been there alone, and by the time they were assigned the fifth, the suit wasn't really a suit anymore. He was just Coulson, a guy that Clint had spent far too many hours with to know so little about.

The assignments that followed came in quick succession and were over nearly before they'd begun, and Clint had almost gotten used to the constant whirlwind of travel interspersed with brief moments of danger when they got put on a hit that was little more than a waiting game. He'd almost forgotten how to be bored on the job. It didn't take long before he remembered.

"I'm not saying you ever need to take me up on the offer to let you sleep," Coulson said conversationally sometime into their third day, checking his watch. "I'm just saying you'll be reported for insubordination if you don't." He stretched his legs. "Your call."

"And here I was starting to think that maybe you were a human instead of someplace convenient to hang a tie," Clint replied. "Pity."

"I'm not a terrible shot, you know."

Clint leveled a look at him. "I know," he said flatly.

"Do you really think that SHIELD would send someone out here who – "

"I had handlers before," Clint interrupted.

"I know."

"A few of them."

"I'm aware." Coulson's mouth twitched in something that was almost a smile. "I assigned them."

"Then I guess you know that they didn't last long. I don't take well to being tested."

That _was_ a smile. A small one, but enough to make Clint almost want to return it. "This isn't a test," Coulson said. "It's a break. I imagine you're going to tell me you don't take too well to those, either."

Clint huffed out a laugh. "From what I hear, you're one to talk." He shifted a little, getting more comfortable in his position. He tilted his head against the wall wrapped his fingers around the bow at his side, closing his eyes. "I want it to be noted," he said without opening them again, "that I am only abandoning my post for sleep under protest."

"I'll put it in the report," Coulson said dryly. 

Clint stayed awake for a while, peeking every so often, and every time he did, Coulson was wary and on alert, hand on his firearm, eyes on their target. "Barton," he said warningly without even looking the third time that Clint peeked, and Clint smiled, tucked his legs up, and slept.  
______________

"Barton. My office."

Clint swore under his breath. He'd done so well at dodging Coulson since he'd gotten back to headquarters that he'd fallen into a routine again, going to the gym at exactly the time he'd be expected to. He emerged from the shower, one towel around his waist and another fisted in his hand, scrubbing at his hair, to find Coulson leaning there in the doorway.

"I'll save you some time," Clint said, dropping both towels at once to a total lack of reaction. He reached for his pants. "No, I haven't done my mission reports. Yes, I realize how vital they are to the operations of our facility and the continued employment of myself and my fellow agents. How about it, still need me?"

"Office," Coulson repeated, leaned to pick up Clint's shirt from the bench, and tossed it at his chest. "Clothes first."

Coulson's office was a study in chaotic organization, each stack of paper looking more precarious than the last, but when Clint propped himself in the doorway, Coulson looked blearily up at him, then reached into the middle of four different piles for six sheets of paper that he stacked neatly and pushed across the desk towards him.

"Read. Confirm. Sign."

Clint raised an eyebrow, stepping into the office. "Possibly you misheard me. I haven't done any mission reports in – " he counted.

"Three months and twenty-one days," Coulson said tiredly. "Luckily, someone in this building had the sense to assign you a partner who _cares_ if I have an aneurysm."

Clint smiled. "That someone was you," he reminded him.

"Yes." Coulson reached forward and tapped the pages. "Sign."

Clint settled into the seat across from him, and skimmed one paper, then the next. "These are – "

"From two months ago. I know."

"And everything since then – "

"Has slipped under Natasha's radar, I suppose." Coulson rubbed at his forehead. "Nobody's started pounding on my door for them yet, so they're low on the priority list."

Clint stretched out his legs, then waved at Coulson's desk. "Which of these has the blank forms?"

Coulson looked up and blinked at him. "None of them." He paused. "What?"

Clint shrugged. "Aneurysms suck," he said. "At least, that's what I hear," he added. "If you want to point me towards the blank versions of these, I can get started on the London job, at least. That one's…complicated, and I don't think Natasha was…well, conscious for all of it, honestly."

"She wasn't," Coulson confirmed. He pulled open a drawer and retrieved a manila folder, pushing it across the desk at Clint. "Be my guest," he said.

They worked like that for a while, the scratch of Clint's pen and the clicking of Coulson's computer the only noise, interspersed with one of them occasionally getting up to make coffee. Clint got gradually more horizontal in his chair, until he relocated to the couch in the corner, stretching out and propping the files on a clipboard on his lap. The office was warm, dim, and comfortable, and when he inevitably fell asleep, it was to the sound of the steady rhythm of Coulson's fingers on the keyboard.  
______________

"There he is."

"I'm here," Clint agreed, trying to open his eyes and squinting up into light so bright it was painful. "Ow." There was a shuffle, and a click, and when he peeked again, the blinding lamp was off. The light filtering in around the curtain that surrounded him was much more tolerable, so he dragged his eyelids open enough to look up at the dark shadow of Coulson standing over him, tucking a phone back into his pocket. "Thanks," Clint mumbled. He looked around, then let his head flop back onto the pillow. "Sickbay. Fucking again."

"Fucking again," Coulson confirmed. "Don't try to get up."

"Get up?" Clint considered it. "No. That's not in the plan." He lay still instead, and let his eyes readjust to working. Coulson hovered over him for a few moments before he seemed satisfied that Clint wasn't about to do anything stupid, then retreated to the chair beside the bed, where he slumped a little too comfortably, looking paler and more worn than Clint remembered.

"That's not a bed, you know," he pointed out. "It doesn't matter how much you keep trying to use it like one, it's not going to turn into it by force of will."

"Fuck off, Barton," Coulson said succinctly, but there was no bite to it.

"I'd love to, sir," Clint replied, "but somebody's forbidden me to move."

"That might be because the last time you did any moving, you nearly got yourself blown up."

Clint winced. "Natasha?" he asked.

"Is fine," Coulson confirmed. "And saved your ass. And will doubtless be down here to kick it thoroughly now that I've informed her you're awake." He patted the pocket holding his phone.

Clint nodded, feeling his eyelids drooping again. "You might have to have her hold onto that asskicking for a while," he said, the words taking a long time to form, and sounding wrong and tangled when they came out. He nodded up towards the IVs dripping above him. "I suspect they might have me on some of the good stuff." He dragged his eyes open long enough to catch Coulson's eyes and say, "Tell her – " he made a gesture of what he hoped was gratitude and waited for Coulson's nod before he let his head sink back into the pillow, and faded away again.  
______________

"Condition of your release," Coulson said, managing to shrug, hold the door open for Clint, and somehow not drop any of the groceries he was carrying. "Just be glad I wasn't still out on assignment, or you'd be laid up for another few days."

Clint grimaced at the thought. "I guess I should thank whoever schedules these things, huh?" he said with what he hoped was a sly grin, instead of a tired one.

"Sit," Coulson ordered, nodding at the couch, which made Clint pretty sure he had failed at hiding his exhaustion. He slumped into the couch cushions and busied himself studying the parts of the apartment he could see while Coulson disappeared into the kitchen. Unlike his office, which had a warm sense of being lived in – a frustrated, paperwork-filled life, granted, but lived in nonetheless – the walls of the living room were an impersonal tan, decorated with some surprisingly tasteful art and more bookshelves than Clint would have expected, but all of it had a disused feel, the books gathering dust, the couch too new to be quite comfortable yet. 

He listened to Coulson clattering around in the kitchen for a while, then offered, "I could give you a hand."

"You're lucky you still _have_ hands," Coulson shot back, followed by a pause, then a flat, "No."

Clint shrugged and picked up the remote, channel surfing idly, checking to see if there was anything saved on the Tivo – there wasn't – and peeking at the bookshelves to see which ones had been disturbed recently. He killed some time looking for anything relevant to any of his missions on the news, until Coulson reemerged from the kitchen, carrying two steaming bowls of soup.

He offered Clint one of them, and Clint peered into it suspiciously. "This isn't out of a can," he said.

Coulson gave him a look, then flopped down into the easy chair beside the couch. "No," he agreed. 

Clint eyed him. "You can _cook_?" 

"I'm a man of mystery," Coulson replied, his eyes crinkling slightly. 

"Apparently." 

The soup was good, and hot, and they settled on watching a classic thriller that Clint had seen, but Coulson hadn't, so Clint split his attention between the food, the movie, and listening to Coulson trying to figure out the twist, which was nearly more enjoyable than the other two combined.

"For someone who does this for a living," Clint said with some glee, "you're remarkably bad at it."

Coulson waved a hand. "People don't act like this," he argued. "They don't talk like this, and they sure as hell don't plan like this. If they did, we'd be out of a job. Somebody give me a screenwriter who can write a real conflict, and _then_ we'll talk."

Clint yawned. "Maybe that can be what you take up when you retire," he offered.

There was a long pause, their eyes meeting, and then Coulson was laughing, quiet but hard, tipping his head back against the chair. "Retire. Right."

They fell quiet for a while, watching the movie, and Clint stretched out on the couch, burying his head in a pillow and staying just barely conscious for the big face-off at the end. "Told you that you had it wrong," he said smugly to Coulson as the credits rolled, then yawned hugely. "Hey." He propped himself up on his arms enough to see Coulson over the pillow. "Thanks." Coulson waved him away and got up to busy himself shutting off the TV and stacking up their dishes. "No, really," Clint insisted. "One more day in the infirmary, and I probably would have snapped."

"Just protecting SHIELD's investment," Coulson said, kicking at Clint's leg lightly as he went by, but he paused in the doorway to the kitchen. "Guess I got used to watching out for your ass," he said a little abruptly. "Is all." He disappeared, and Clint closed his eyes, listening to the sound of him bustling around the kitchen, the distant rush of the sink. 

He woke in the middle of the night, disoriented, to find a blanket tossed over his shoulders, and a notepad sitting on the coffee table in front of him, with _guest room's that way_ scribbled on it, an arrow pointing his way down the hall.  
______________

Coulson didn't object when Clint started singing along with the radio, which was the last on a long list of tells that something was on his mind.

"You good?" Clint asked without taking his eyes off the road, and he saw Coulson start out of the corner of his eye.

"Fine," Coulson said evenly.

"Because we've got a ways to go," Clint pointed out. He didn't say any more, about the long few weeks they'd had, the deep lines that showed up around Coulson's eyes when things were piling up. 

"Yeah," Coulson agreed without any real meaning behind it, and Clint turned the music down a little, dropped his window so the desert air rushed in, and gave a little _have it your way_ lift of his eyebrows for Coulson's benefit.

"There's a project," Coulson finally said into the stillness.

Clint blinked, then nodded. "I know," he said.

"I'd like you on it."

"Yeah?" Clint glanced at him quickly, then looked back to the road. "That's – I mean – " he stopped, and searched for words.

"You can think about it," Coulson said. "I don't need an answer now. In fact, officially, I haven't even mentioned it to you yet."

"Yes," Clint said. He took in a deep breath of desert air and let it out again. "I'm in."

Coulson looked at him intently. "Just like that?"

"Just like that," Clint confirmed. "Unofficially, of course."

"Of course."

They lapsed into silence again, and he hummed along with the music for a while, counting roadsigns to pass the time. When he glanced over at the next rest stop to see if Coulson wanted to take a break, he found him slumped against the window, eyes closed, breathing even, mouth parted a little. He looked younger, somehow, and the lights passing over his face gave the impression that he was smiling at something in his sleep.

Clint smiled back, turned the music up a little, and kept driving, his hands steady on the wheel, eyes on the road ahead of them.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Chapter Read, Lesson Learned by Jai (Podfic)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/384172) by [inkjunket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkjunket/pseuds/inkjunket)




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